Materials Science And Bone Glue

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Regenerative medicine encompasses many minor fields often overlooked by observers - such as how we fix broken bones. Betterhumans reports on the development of a new engineered compound that glues bones together and speeds healing. "Seliktar took fibrin, the protein in blood plasma responsible for clotting, and to it attached a synthetic material called polyethylene glycol that's a plastic used in biomedical applications ... "The result is a three-dimensional material with the biological properties of fibrin and the strength of plastic." These sorts of advances - enabled by materials science - may seem comparatively minor, but they greatly improve on natural regenerative processes and benefit many people.

Link: http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2004-12-24-4